• By Morgan Craven, J.D. • IDRA Newsletter • March 2025 • 
On March 3, 2025, Linda McMahon was sworn in as the U.S. Secretary of Education, a cabinet-level position tasked with advising the president on education policy and leading the U.S. Department of Education.
In her confirmation hearing opening statement, Secretary McMahon claimed that the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are proof of a bloated and ineffective federal education department (see more about NAEP).
In a statement issued after her swearing-in, she further clarified her vision for the department to cut programming, pass responsibilities and funds down to states, and support a federal voucher program, even though such schemes erode educational achievement and student protections.
The secretary’s vision for U.S. schools is not a surprise. It is consistent with the goals of Project 2025 and promises made by President Trump (IDRA, 2024).
These goals also are articulated in the new administration’s agenda and executive actions, including the executive order signed on March 20, 2025, to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (The White House, 2025). This order directs the Secretary of Education to take steps to close the department and turn “authority over education to the states and local communities.”
Secretary McMahon’s task to send “education back to the states” means shifting the responsibility of targeted programs and large pots of federal funding away from the U.S. Department of Education. The department oversees the distribution of billions of dollars for schools to serve poor children, English learners, and students with disabilities, among many others.
If the promises Secretary McMahon made are kept, millions of students across the country will experience drastic detrimental changes in school resources and programs and harms to their core rights.
Shifting this funding to states (potentially phasing the funding out over time) threatens the targeted focus on specific students and programs that need it most. It also undermines the critical federal oversight that ensures compliance with education civil rights laws across all states.
The secretary has already overseen mass layoffs to advance the goal of weakening the ability of the department to perform its duties. On March 11, 2025, Secretary McMahon announced the firing of nearly 50% of the workforce, affecting every division in the department from student to financial aid to policy to special education (Dept. of Education, 2025). This impacted more than 240 employees at the department’s Office for Civil Rights, including attorneys working to protect students’ civil rights in field offices across the country (Turner, 2025).
The layoffs also included every expert in the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), which oversees programs and supports for schools serving English learner and immigrant students. And, it has been reported that the administration has fired almost every attorney who monitored and reported violations related to how states use federal funds (Turner, 2025).
The administration’s directive to make “parents as the primary decision makers” will mean increasing departmental support for school privatization, including federal voucher programs, even though these schemes erode public education, funnel public dollars away from the public schools that serve millions of students, and compromise parents’ rights to protect their children (see Latham Sikes, 2025).
This departmental support could come in the form of shifting federal funds to private school voucher-style programs and supporting proposals like the Educational Choice for Children Act, which would provide tax credits to individuals who give money to voucher distribution organizations (NCPE, 2025).
The administration’s “focus on meaningful learning… not divisive [diversity, equity and inclusion] programs” means doubling down on harmful policies that target truthful and accurate curriculum about diverse communities. It means threatening to defund schools because they have chosen to implement important initiatives that tackle disparities in diverse students’ access to college, exposure to rigorous coursework and school discipline (Trainor, 2025; Craven, 2025).
And it means the department using its enforcement and investigation powers not to protect vulnerable students but to advance an agenda that relies on denying the role of race, racism and other forms of discrimination in students’ lives.
Her plans for increasing focus on preparing students for careers “aligned with workforce needs” is a worthwhile goal on the surface but, as seen time and time again, may result in schools funneling large swaths of students away from college pathways or focusing on industries with limited earnings and limited stability.
The Secretary of Education plays a significant role in shaping the federal education policies that impact millions of students across the country. As head of the U.S. Department of Education, the secretary oversees its programs, research, and data collection initiatives and manages the distribution of billions of dollars to K-12 schools, colleges and students.
Additionally, the secretary leads the department’s efforts to enforce civil rights protections and ensure compliance with the federal laws that govern schools.
While many secretaries of education have sought to fulfill the department’s mandate to provide equal educational opportunities for all students, Secretary McMahon’s confirmation signals a dramatic shift in the way the U.S. Department of Education functions. By her own admission, her main goal is to implement an agenda to shift power and responsibility away from the department, not to strengthen it.
Before holding this position, Secretary McMahon led the U.S. Small Business Administration, served for about one year on the Connecticut State Board of Education, and was a trustee of Sacred Heart University. Much of her career was spent as President and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), a professional wrestling promotion company (Mehta, 2025).
She also served as chair of the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a policy think tank that promotes policy positions across a number of issues, including education. Many of these positions align with those of the new administration and other conservative policy platforms, like Project 2025 (see IDRA, 2024).
Past secretaries have had some background in education, including as teachers, school district and university administrators, and educational organization leaders. But both Secretary McMahon and President Trump have emphasized that it is McMahon’s WWE business background, not her limited experience in education, that makes her best suited to lead the U.S. Department of Education.
Indeed, her education background is limited, but we can learn a lot about her positions on education issues and goals from her organizational affiliations and statements since she was nominated to lead the department.
The U.S. Department of Education is likely to look very different in four years. Linda McMahon’s confirmation is proof of that. If the promises she made are kept, millions of students across the country will experience drastic detrimental changes in school resources and programs and harms to their core rights.
Resources
AFPI. (January 13, 2025). America First Nomination: Linda McMahon. America First Policy Institute.
Craven, M. (February 28, 2025). New U.S. Department of Education Letter Threatens Protections for Students. IDRA eNews.
IDRA. (2024). Threats to Public Education in our States and Communities: An Analysis of Project 2025.
Latham Sikes, C. (February 4, 2025). The ‘Texas Three-Step’: Defund, Demonize, and Privatize Public Schools. Texas Observer.
Mehta, J. (February 8, 2025). Linda McMahon led WWE and the SBA. The U.S. Education Dept. may be next. NPR.
NCPE. (2025). Oppose $20 Billion Federal Private School Voucher Program. National Coalition for Public Education.
Trainor, C. (February 14, 2025). Dear Colleague Letter SFFA v. Harvard. U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights.
Turner, C. (March 13, 2025). The Education Department is being cut in half. Here’s what’s being lost. National Public Radio.
U.S. Department of Education. (March 11, 2025). U.S. Department of Education Initiates Reduction in Force, press release.
U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. (2025). Linda McMahon Secretary of Education Nominee Opening Statement.
The White House. (2025). Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities. Executive Order.
Morgan Craven, J.D., is the IDRA national director of policy, advocacy and community engagement. Comments and questions may be directed to her via email at morgan.craven@idra.org.
[© 2025, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the March edition of the IDRA Newsletter. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]
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